Is the use of email for acquisition really dead?
Last month I presented at the B2B Marketing Magazines email excellence seminar, and this debate popped up again. Adestra commented on this very subject in 2008 on the E-consultancy blog but how much has actually changed since then?
It is true that email results for acquisition are still substantially lower than for retention emails, and load and blast isn’t the best method either. There is one obvious reason why retention emails perform better than acquisition and that is because recipient knows who you are and so they read your email.
Now, if we transfer this to email for acquisition, the question is not “Is email for acquisition dead?” it’s “when should you use email for acquisition?” The simple answer is, when they know who you are.
Possible ways to do this:
- Following up your sales teams call list with a newsletter about the service / company.
- Using the data you have collected at an trade show to nurture prospects.
- Your company has spoken at event. See if you can use that data to send out the presentation and start a dialogue with the prospects.
- Competition entries, signups for whitepapers etc etc… use the information you have.
From here, these prospects can be entered into a lead nurturing programme which can include events, letters, email, telesales and face-to-face meetings to ensure they know who you are and you are building a rapport with your leads.
So no, email for acquisition is not dead, but using it to blanket email a bought list just won’t work for you any longer. Email should be a part of the lead nurturing process and cannot be relied on to close the deal for you, but it will help you to build that relationship with your prospects if used with other channels.
Reena Mistry, Group Account Director
